Email a friend

To

From

Thank you

Sorry

Everybody expected it when Nvidia announced the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti at Gamescom. But Nvidia still pulled off a surprise, revealing the GeForce RTX 2070 at the same time—albeit without any concrete launch details whatsoever. Now, mere days before the slightly delayed RTX 2080 Ti hits the streets, Nvidia has announced release date information for the GeForce RTX 2070.

The GeForce RTX 2070 will launch on October 17, Nvidia’s GeForce account tweeted today. The Founders Edition model will cost $599 on GeForce.com, with prices from third-party partners like EVGA, Asus, and Gigabyte starting at $499—at least in theory. In reality, we’ve seen custom cards treat the Nvidia Founders Edition cost as the true price baseline when new GPUs launch.

But will ray tracing be ready for the GeForce RTX 2070’s launch? That’s the big question. October 17 is about a month after the RTX 2080’s launch. Microsoft hasn’t announced a firm release date for October 2018 Update.

Spitballing off how the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti compare to their predecessors, the GeForce RTX 2070 might wind up matching the performance of the GTX 1080 in traditional games. If that’s the case, the situation would match the RTX 2080 versus GTX 1080 Ti dilemma. You’ll be paying the same amount—or likely more—for the same level of traditional game performance, 2.5 long years after the GTX 1080’s debut. If ray tracing and DLSS aren’t available by the time the GeForce RTX 2070 launches, buyers will once again be asked to make a leap of faith in paying that premium for Turing’s future-facing features.

Nvidia

Fingers crossed ray tracing ships before October 17. In the meantime, here’s a refresher on the GeForce RTX 2070’s core specs:

You can sign up to be notified when the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition will be available to preorder on the GeForce website. Asus already revealed ROG Strix, Dual Fan, and blower-style RTX 2070 graphics cards, so expect to see custom models around the same date.

To comment on this article and other PCWorld content, visit our Facebook page or our Twitter feed.